Baby Two photos

Last week we had Baby Two's second and final scan. I was 21 weeks along but he/she measured about 22 weeks. The scan made Baby Two seem much more real, and I couldn't get over how cute he/she looked, genuinely!! Just look how snuggly it is in there:

Ben likes the picture above because you can see its lenses behind its eyelids. I think it's a bit strange!

Messy Play: Fun with Flour

Yesterday we did our first bit to fulfil one of my New Year's Resolutions, which was to do more hands-on, messy things with Oliver. I will document them on here so a) I can prove I am fulfilling my goals, b) people with babies can get ideas and c) you can offer ideas of what to do next!

So our first adventure was with flour. We got our new 'Messy Mat' out, along with lots of pots, a sieve and some utensils (masher, fork, ladle, medicine spoon, cookie cutters) and it kept him happily entertained for a good 30 minutes! His favourite was raking the flour with a fork, and tipping it out of the pots onto his legs.

I suppose perhaps flour isn't the bravest thing to try- we'll get messier next time I promise!

Major Breakthrough!

... Oliver has just gone off to bed WITHOUT his last milky feed. I have been feeding him for a couple of days shy of 13 months now and despite a very painful first few weeks have absolutely loved it!! He has been weaning himself off gradually quite happily but today was the first time I've pulled one- milky before bed. So far we have both lived to tell the tale!! He whimpered for ten minutes or so and now he is fast asleep. Ahhh, a bit of time off being a Mummy milk cow... until May :)

Photographic Proof that Christmas happened!!

I only have a handful of Christmas photos (everyone has better cameras than us so I let them take them!) so here they are:

Father Christmas came!! Ben and Oliver's stockings

Ben and a couple of pressies

Oliver with Great Granddad on Christmas Day

Dad offers Ed £1.50 if he lets him put day old custard in their face!

Note he is wearing Oliver's bib!

Urgh!! :)

Oliver now points at EVERYTHING!

I LOVE Goals :)

Happy Christmas and Happy New Year!! We have been away down South for the best past of two weeks and yesterday morning we made it back home! It was lovely to be away but I always love coming home too- back to normality which is different but also wonderful.

While I am waiting for some Christmassy photos from my family I will divulge my goals for 2012. Ahhh, I LOVE goals, and I set as many as possible and love sticking to them. Ben always groans at my enthusiasm for goals and my eagerness that he set lots too, but he is very good to me, and we wrote a couple together :)

Personal:
- Finish Oliver's Quiet book
- Join something musical and do at least one concert
- Learn 12 hymns on the piano from the children's songbook (one a month)
- Have another baby and be sane :)

Physical:
- Lose baby weight plus an extra 3lb by Christmas 2012
- Begin colouring hair and make a concerted effort with doing something with it!

Spiritual:
- Read every Ensign cover to cover (The 'Ensign' is our church magazine)
- Do Sunday school weekly readings before each Sunday lesson

Familial:
- Do something messy/arty with Oliver at least twice a week
- Initiate more kisses! (Ben likes them and I forget to give them!!)
- Go out on a date with Ben twice a month- get a babysitter and organise one each per month
- Sort out Oliver's nap schedule... it's rubbish AGAIN!

I think they are all doable!! Here goes... :)

Christmassy stuff

Ben and I have been getting into the Christmas spirit recently and we did a mince pie taste test against Mr Kiplings, Mrs Peeks, and Mrs Twigger's (mine!) We rated them according to pastry thickness, how deep-filled they were, flavour, stodginess, appearance and size. Ha, I wasn't expecting mine to fare very well against those, but at least you could still tell what they were!! We voted Mrs Peeks as the best and liked the little apple-y kick we could taste. We later discovered that it was alcohol (oops!) so that must have been the kick we liked! So we now prefer Mr Kiplings :)

 

 

(L to R) Mr K's, Mrs P's and Mrs T's :)

This morning Oliver and I went to the Mum and baby Christmas party up at the local community centre. It was great and even Father Christmas was there!! Here is Squeaky Boy partying it up:

Mid- excitable scream. He is STILL in that phase!

Feeling crafty...

A couple of evenings ago I finished making the tiny yellow quilt I began while we were living in Sunbury, London, Summer 2010. It was originally a church project and lots of us were making them for the preemie baby unit but I took so long I missed the deadline and aimed for Oliver's birth... but since it would hardly cover his legs I think now it'll have to be for Baby Two. I hadn't touched it for ever and finally got around to bodging up trhe binding nicely but HOORAY it is done! The front, at least, looks quite lovely.

Now that I've finished one project I am on to the next one. I have been gathering supplies for a few weeks now for a 'quiet book'- a fabric book with things to do and learn on each page that will keep Oliver entertained and quiet during church. I've got LOTS of felt, googly eyes, coloured buttons and some great scraps of fluffy material for animal paws, noses etc. For a while I have been stalking this amazing lady's blog: http://www.quietbook.blogspot.com/ She has some amazing ideas that I will be using and loads of links to other people's pages doing a similar thing, like this lady: http://johnandjackidaley.blogspot.com/2011/08/quiet-book.html and this lady made a Star Wars one which is very cool (I'm not showing it to Ben yet though, cos he would definitely want one!) http://juliegillrie.blogspot.com/2010/09/my-jedi-quiet-book.html and this one is great too: http://lellaboutique.blogspot.com/2011/04/baby-boy-texture-book.html

Ahhh, I'm in heaven with a project on the go.

In other news, I made mince pies for the first time yesterday. I am surprised how well they came out- they taste good!! Oliver helped and had his own spoon while I filled them with mincemeat. But, in keeping with my rubbishy presentation but good taste, they were cunningly disguised as cupcakes because I don't have a baking tray with shallow dips in it (for yorkshire puds or pies etc) so I used pastel-coloured silicone cupcake moulds and they don't look like mince pies at all! Taste great though.